President of Brookings Institution to give keynote address at Baker Peace Conference tonight

ATHENS, Ohio (March 29, 2007) -- With declining public support for the war in Iraq, U.S. foreign policy is under the microscope. Tonight in his keynote address at the Baker Peace Conference, Strobe Talbott will shed light on this issue and many more.

The conference -- which will examine how the United States' relationships with its European allies and surrounding issues have changed since the North American Treaty Organization formed in 1949 -- plays to Talbott's expertise.

"He has experience in dealing with Europe at a very high level," said Steven Miner, professor of history and director of Ohio University's Contemporary History Institute. "He knows what the causes of disputes with Europe are."

In addition to serving with the State Department as deputy secretary of state for seven years, Talbott worked for Time magazine for 21 years covering areas including the White House and the State Department. Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution, will speak at 7:30 p.m. tonight at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium.

Titled "The State of the Atlantic Alliance," the event will focus on issues facing the Atlantic Alliance, including the use of force, the role of international institutions, United States-British relations, war crimes and the international criminal court. Miner expects Talbott to bring insight on the causes of the problems and whether they may be remedied.

"I hope those who attend will get a bit more perspective on how the issue of NATO fits into the larger context of the way the international system works and the foreign policy of the current administration," Talbott said.

Talbott, who also has served as director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, has degrees from Yale and Oxford (where he was a classmate of Bill Clinton's as a Rhodes Scholar). He has written nine books, which reflect his expertise in the areas of NATO, Europe, national security, Russia and the Soviet Union, South Asia, and U.S. foreign policy. The Brookings Institution, which he has led since 2002, is a private nonprofit organization devoted to conducting independent research and offering policy solutions regarding various issues facing the world.

He was attracted to the conference "because the topic is of great interest to me and because I have such esteem for the university and the faculty involved."

Talbott, who was born in Dayton and raised in Cleveland, added, "I always welcome a chance to go home to Ohio."